Readings in African Politics

Readings in African Politics provides an overview of key topics and themes that collectively contribute to an understanding of politics in Africa. The selections included here come from a wide range of Western and non-Western sources and together represent core knowledge in the field of African politics. Topic areas covered are methods for appraising the modern African state, approaches to understanding African states and their politics, dimensions of regional conflict, conflict between traditional and modern values, the politics of new social forces, and the meaning of contemporary trends. An introductory essay by Tom Young sketches the terrain of politics in Africa from national and international efforts toward development to local problems such as corruption and ethnic conflict. Readers at all levels will find even-handed coverage of politics in sub-Saharan Africa's more than 30 states from the early years of independence to today.

Tom Young is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Preliminary Table of Contents:

Preface

Notes on Contributors

Introduction Tom Young

Part 1. Appraising the Modern State

1. A. Zolberg, The Party-State in Perspective from Creating Political Order: The Party States of West Africa

2. Robert H. Bates, Rental Havens and Protective Shelters and The Origins of Political Marginalism from Markets and States in Tropical Africa

3. Goran Hyden, Conditions of Governance, from No Shortcuts to Progress: African Development Management in Perspective

4. Robert H. Jackson and C. G. Rosberg, Personal Rule: Theory and Practice in Africa, extract from Comparative Politics

5. Robert Fatton, Jr., Bringing the Ruling Class Back In: Class, State, and Hegemony in Africa, from Comparative Politics

6. Jean-Francois Bayart, The State, translated from "L'Etat" in Coulon and Martin, eds., Les Afriques Politiques

7. Mahmood Mamdani, Conclusion: Linking the Urban and the Rural, from Citizen and